First Win
by Bolt of Tien Mu
Summary: A memory from Yusuke's childhood. Growing up is always tough.


Author's notes: I was watching the morning news and they had an article on bullying in schools. And, as I watched the kids getting pushed around, I could be heard to say, "Fight back, ya damn pansy asses!" I don't make a very good victim, as you can see. Naturally, I thought of Yusuke's childhood. He wouldn't make a good victim either. Thus. YYH belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi/Shueisha, Studio Pierrot, and so on.

Warnings: None, really. Slight angst. Violence in the mildest possible sense.

First Win  
A Yu Yu Hakusho Memory Fic by Kitsuneko

The first day of school was not off to a good start. Yusuke had left his house, dressed in neat uniform shorts and a short sleeved shirt, carrying his super hero lunch box, with Atsuko waving from their apartment balcony. But that was about as far as he got. He walked to school alone; all the other children had their mothers walking with them and the middle aged women chattered like hushed birds with one another. They said things Yusuke didn't understand, but sometimes he would catch a word or two and so would the other children, who looked up at their mothers with ignorant eyes.

"That woman-"

"Not even old enough to drink-"

"And her son is entering school-"

"I hear-"

"-men at all hours-"

He knew, in his heart, that the things they said were what made him different, which fated him to a life forever tinged with solitude, though it was only a vague, unnamable fear now. Yusuke hated them. His anger made every muscle in his small body tense, squinching his eyes shut as if he could block out their horrid truths that way. When they got to school and the mothers were left at the gates (a guarded passage sacred to all children), Yusuke walked with his eyes down, watching the steady progression of his feet across the courtyard. Until they intersected the path of another student, larger and older, and Yusuke's small body clumsily bounced off him. From his new position, seated on the cobblestone walkway, Yusuke could look up at the face of the other student, which showed an excessive scowl. Had he been any older, Yusuke would have been inspired to make some comment about an unlikely pedigree for the child, but he was now reduced to terrified gawking.

The older boy hauled Yusuke to his feet by the front of his shirt, and then beyond the point of standing, leaving Yusuke to flail awkwardly with his toes barely scraping the ground. But he knew his situation was rapidly spiraling downward when an obvious change came over the other boy's face, his features dissolving into something akin to evil amusement.

"You're the kid my mom was talking about! She said your momma was a HUSSY!" This was said with absolute confidence and it was clear that the boy had no idea what, exactly, his mother had meant by the comment. But, as is always true with children, tone is everything and words are only an inconvenient convention through which to voice an emotion, which runs far below the surface meaning of a word. And Yusuke tensed again, sensing again that concentrated heat which threatened to blow his body apart. And he swung.

The punch was clumsy and too wide, but the other boy was dense enough to not avoid it and Yusuke's small fist connected with the general region of his nose and left eye with a dull thump. The boy released Yusuke and he landed on his rear for a second time that morning. The other boy ran, squealing like a stuck pig, into the building, only to return a moment later with a young female teacher in tow. Yusuke did not have the sense to run, instead passively allowing himself to be pulled indoors and down the hall to the principal's office. The halls were a pale blur and Yusuke knew he would never remember where anything was here, except the direction of motion which he sensed took him to some small death.

The teacher's reprimands fell on deaf ears which were bright red from embarrassment. The secretary was on the phone with his mother, instructing her to come fetch her son. Over the muffled drone of the teacher, Yusuke could hear the bell ringing in the start of class. He had been kicked out of school before it had even started. That unknown ache started again, tightening his throat and making his eyes sting. He clenched his jaw and demanded that his body be silent and still, tough enough to ignore this pain.

Atsuko's entrance shattered the silence which had loomed over the room, though she said nothing, made no sound of rage or sorrow. She looked calm, frozen even, but for the flush to her face and neck which told Yusuke she had run all the way from their home. In silence, she scooped up her son, tucking his body against her chest, and strode out. No one in the room had gall enough to protest.

She said nothing as they walked home, even when Yusuke halfheartedly asked to be put down. Early morning traffic still whizzed down the streets beside them, but there was a bubble of oppressive quiet around the pair. Nothing of the outside world's life touched them; they were locked away in their private suffering. When they reentered the apartment, she pulled two chairs up from the kitchen table to face one another.

"Tell me what happened." And Yusuke told her. Everything that he had heard and not understood, that terrible fear that he didn't understand, the boy and his accusations which neither one understood, and his anger that no one could understand. And Atsuko understood. She hugged him and he cried; she wiped his tears away and he tightened his jaw so he could be strong.

"Listen, Yu-chan. You're not going to know what I mean, but you'll get it some day. People don't like us. They think we're bad and they're afraid of us. That's why they act like this. But you did right by me. I'm not mad you hit that brat. But you have to make me a promise if you're going to do that again. You gotta promise you'll never lose, okay? This might be the only thing you can ever beat them at, so you gotta be the best and never let them win. Do you understand?" Yusuke nodded. "Okay. Come on, I'll make you some ice cream. If you're gonna miss your first day of school, might as well make it worthwhile."

"Momma?" Atsuko turned back to look down at him. "Am I bad?" Atsuko started for a minute at him, then sniffed once and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

"No, baby. You're the best. You'll be a winner."


End file.
